Juliana v. United States
An action by twenty-one young people against US federal energy policy, dismissed for lack of standing, with the Supreme Court declining to hear it in March 2025.
US federal law requires a plaintiff to show injury, causation and that a court can redress it. The Juliana case ran aground on the third condition: the Ninth Circuit accepted injury and causation, but held that no court could order an overhaul of an energy system, a decision reserved to the political branches. The contrast with Urgenda or Neubauer is instructive: depending on the legal order, the same climate argument leads to an injunction or to dismissal. For risk analysis, this means that litigation against the US federal government carries little weight, and that pressure moves to the states and to companies. The case lasted ten years.
Filed in 2015, the action was held nonjusticiable by the Ninth Circuit on January 17, 2020 for lack of redressability; after a further dismissal order in 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear the petition on March 24, 2025.
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